


warm suns

by dames_for_jamesbarnes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Has Issues, no happy ending, nothing but sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16377932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dames_for_jamesbarnes/pseuds/dames_for_jamesbarnes
Summary: Tony watches Steve fall into the abyss, watches his hand reach out for him even when they both know it’s what needed to be done. Even though it had been Steve’s idea, standing on a strange planet and faced by a former enemy, to give himself up for the fate of the world.Tony watches and watches, almost forces himself to. Stares at the lifeless body, wonders if the rocks below had to sharpen to make sure that a super soldier’s neck broke, if the fall was as long as it looks. He doesn’t know what comes next.He’s not sure he wants to.





	warm suns

**Author's Note:**

> tw: major character death, PTSD, angst. haven’t written in a while. don’t really know how the gauntlet works, so if this is inaccurate, sorry.

Tony watches Steve fall into the abyss, watches his hand reach out for him even when they both know it’s what needed to be done. Even though it had been Steve’s idea, standing on a strange planet and faced by a former enemy, to give himself up for the fate of the world.

Tony watches and watches, almost forces himself to. Stares at the lifeless body, wonders if the rocks below had to sharpen to make sure that a super soldier’s neck broke, if the fall was as long as it looks. He doesn’t know what comes next.

He’s not sure he wants to.

* * *

They had been rebuilding. Had been steadily bringing the world back. The problems that were there before… some were still apparent, like tension, anger, frustration, even if things like hunger and need somehow were “solved”.

But no hunger and less people still didn’t take away the fact that so many had been lost. So many had vanished, before the eyes of fucking billions, and Tony still woke up with his left hand clutched to his chest. Still spent hours sometimes scrubbing at the skin until it was red raw.

Still saw the shadow of ash on his undersuit.

Still heard Peter’s voice.

But if there was any fucking good in anything at all, it was that the end of the world was all it took to bring Steve back to him. For him to realize that no matter what shit the two of them had gone through (the Accords would never been agreed on, and Tony’s chest would never stop aching at the look in Steve’s eyes as his shield was brought down onto his - ) that for now, all they fucking had was Bruce and Nat and Thor and Clint and each other.

So much pain. End of the world. And somehow he managed to find himself being held at the end of the day.

And he wasn’t the only one scrubbing at skin, really. But with Steve’s hands on top of his own, something blocking the scalding water from touching him, sometimes he was able to stop.

* * *

The world he wakes up in is icy cold, but warming. A sun, not his own, dawning on the horizon. His suit isn’t around him, the nanites held on top of his chest. As he lifts, he seems to be rising out of water, but there’s not a spot of liquid on him as he lifts his head, nothing dripping down the nape of his neck but the slow realization that as his hand without the Gauntlet comes out of the water, there’s something clutched in the fist.

He knows what it is, it’s what they fucking came for, but it doesn’t change the fact that on this godforsaken planet, world, _life_ , he’s alone, once more.

It clicks in, the Soul Stone. Perfect, a match.

He’s still cold, even as FRIDAY’s systems have him plotting a course off the planet and the suit with state of the art heat circulation courtesy of himself closes around him.

* * *

Tony’s fingers curled around the other man’s, tight and unyielding. It was reciprocated, thankfully, as they sat in a Wakandan room, Shuri’s reign giving them first and foremost asylum and secondly a mission to figure out what took her brother away from her.

The plan, the immediate one, had been simple. They needed the stones, back from Thanos, needed the Gauntlet, needed to right the wrong, but the plans that had to lead up to that plan were still a… work in progress.

“I just can’t believe Clint has tattoos,” Steve mumbled, and a huff of air left Tony’s nose, a snort of laughter as they glanced around the table, looking at the mess that Thanos’s snap had left, even now. Years later.

Nebula stood before them. Laid out the details of what she managed to get from some far reaches of some galaxy. The truth of what Gamora (there’s a twitch from Quill, but no one has the gall to even glance his way) had hidden from them, in order to protect them. The Stones had been scattered after the snap, Wong had determined that, but to find them, without even a clue where to start, it would be rough.

“The Soul Stone. It’s the closest one to us, but. Knowing Thanos that won’t stop him from attempting to retrieve them once more from where he buried them, to make sure that we can’t undo what he worked so hard to accomplish.”

“So do we make moves toward it?” Natasha asked, raising a brow at the ragtag group in the room.

“If we have one, the timer starts, and he has the upper hand,” Tony noted, leaning back in his chair, his thumb running over the skin on Steve’s hand so his voice didn’t shake. “There’s no telling what kind of power Thanos gave himself. Where he hid them.”

“And who knows if there are any dwarves still alive and willing to create us something to house it once more. Or if he still has the Gauntlet. It would require going after him.” Thor’s tones never felt joyful anymore, and this was no exception, his eyes not meeting anyone but watching carefully the state of his friend ‘Rabbit’.

“So, what’s our move, then? Look at us,” Clint snapped, his mohawk and covered skin only enhancing the infamous Barton attitude. “Who the hell are we to go after someone like Thanos? We got nothing.”

A harsh laugh left Steve, then, one loud enough that Tony beside him jumped, and eyes collectively lifted or adjusted to stare at him.

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” he told them, and there was nothing but pain in his blue gaze as he looked from person to person. When no one seemed to have the magic word, Steve’s shoulders lifted and dropped again, the weight shared by all of them making the movement slow. Tired.

_“We fight.”_

* * *

Every cell in Tony’s body aches, and his left arm is ripped to shreds. There’s no salvagable skin, surely, and it’s so gone that there’s no nerves lefft to scream at him. There’s no Gauntlet, either, though somehow he still feels it pull at his arm as he lifts his head, once more, out of water that doesn’t touch him, a cold world, a warm sun.

But when his eyes catch on the man out in front of him, there’s nothing he wants more than to force himself down into the water and stay there until the cold finally overtakes him.

He looks… different. Looks younger, looks stronger, a suit that Tony made for him on his body, a star in the center of his chest. Someone’s cut his hair, someone’s shaved his beard, and with a flash he’s reminded of when they first met, the way his jaw is clenched, and how there’s no shyness in his daring gaze as he meets brown eyes with a distinct shine over them.

“Steve?”

He can’t move towards him. His legs don’t want to work, even as the universe knits itself back together around them, even as he realizes that this means that they “won”.

Steve doesn’t respond directly, but he seems to drag a smile out, one too somber to mean anything but that this time, together, will be the last.

“Did you do it?”

“Yes.” Tony’s breathless, shaking, and the distance between them seems to close with every blink.

“What did it cost?”

It doesn’t sound like Steve. It’s almost like his voice is amplified, and he hears every single fucking sacrifice, every single loss, every single death that the Stones have brought. They’re all in front of them, but he only sees Steve. Sees the curve of his shoulders, the soft golden tint of his hair. It seems to wave in wind that Tony doesn’t feel.

He thinks that if he reaches for Steve, he can touch him. And he does, lifting a hand to cup his jaw. There’s nothing more in response than a tilt of the other’s neck, and their foreheads touch.

A breath between them. In and out.

“Everything. You know it… it cost everything.”

* * *

 

“Has it been worth it?”

He doesn’t know immediately who asks the question, but he has a feeling that he recognizes the voice behind him. He’s not as sharp as he used to be, not as quick on his feet when he’s working the problems on the board. Better minds have long since overtaken him. He manages a smile when he sees how far Peter’s come. But he knows that voice. Heard it more often than he thought it would.

After all, they both lost something that day.

His hair seems to take on the tones of the sunset, white becoming a little golden, as he turns to face Bucky Barnes. No matter how tight the suit is, no matter how often he sees it, it doesn’t feel the same. He only sees Steve, even as he builds and builds for someone a little shorter, a little broader. He’s still haunted by ghosts.

“Hmm?” Maybe he heard it wrong. Or maybe he’s just hoping he did. Manages to keep his smirk, which bends his skin into more wrinkles than he cared to count anymore.

Bucky’s steps are heavy, across the concerte roof, and seem like they shake everything that Tony is. When he stands next to him, it’s with eyes that look out over the bustling world. The noise.

“We… we won, y’know. Losing him, after all this. Has it been worth it?”

Now it’s undeniable. Tony’s blood has been running cold since the day he made the snap, but for a moment it hits subzero.

He manages a laugh, a short snort that takes him back to moments in Wakandan conference rooms, makes him hurt any more. He turns back to the skyline, and their shoulders touch. The metal arm is ice. The sun is warm.

“Never was.”


End file.
